They can call it franchising or whatever they like, but the simple fact is that this is privatisation, and we all know what privatisation of our essential services means – increased costs and decreased services.

But this is nothing new from the Tourism and Transport Forum, they have been advocating franchising for years. Now they may finally have a government to take them up on the idea.

The government is already trying to sell off Newcastle Buses, and they will hide behind this report to privatise Sydney Buses next.

We’ve seen a myriad of examples of what happens when you privatise a transport service – the T-way bus service in Region 9 has received complaint after complaint from commuters who say the service has deteriorated severely, even some services running with smashed windows, since it was sold off to a private operator.

Transport Minister Andrew Constance said in a statement that he was 100 per cent behind “driving better and more services for customers”, but he refuses to do the obvious thing and work with transport workers, commuters and stakeholders to deliver the quality transport system we deserve.

Franchising will have all the same issues that privatisation does, except the Minister thinks it will be an easier sell to the community.